This show is one of my top favorites. :)
Iwakura Yasuo -- Layer 01: "Weird"
Lain's room -- Layer 06: "Kids"
The omniprescent lines of the Wired -- Layer 10: "Love"
Lain, showing her childish nature. -- Layer 12: "Landscape"
Serial Experiments Lain tv Review
Lain seems like your typical schoolgirl, but she is anything but that. One day one of her classmates, Chisa Yomoda, commits suicide. All of Lain's classmates say that they got a phony email from her, and Lain decides to check it out. The email says that Chisa is not really gone, but has merely left her body and left for the Wired, a place which is similar to the internet. "I am gone in body but not in mind" she writes.
Lain does not believe that the email is a prank, so she decides to investigate. Soon she is not sure of what is real and what isn't, so with the help of a special Psycho chip mysteriously found in her locker, Lain decides to take action as more and more people are leaving their bodies for the Wired.
Synopsis by: Daos
Story & Characters
Serial Experiments: Lain (abbr. SE:L) is a cyberpunk story that stars a young girl who is making sense of her world.
Now, this sounds familiar, right? To a point. By the end of the first episodes, all similarity ends. While the series opens with a suicide, that suicide sets the plot going. You see how Lain becomes more and more wrapped up in the Wired (the Internet, woven through life) and how she becomes more and more in tune with it. While it does start a little slow, it picks up pace by the end of the first disc and accelerates in the last.
And like most cyberpunk series, the themes of the story are there. The hacker hero, an underground culture, the question of what measure is a human, a Worldwide Internet, the virtualization of the mind... A lot of cyberpunk motifs are present, and they create an exciting little series.
As SE:L progresses, we see how Lain's personality evolves from a timid, shy little girl to a confident, concerned little girl. At the beginning, she has no friends. She's like all of us when we started out -- a child. But little by little, her shell expands, and melts, and she starts building connections. In public, she starts hanging out with friends and becomes more personable. In private, she's expanding her computer and becoming more straightforward. When she speaks with others in the Wired about various topics, we see the dark side of her. And when she speaks with her friends, we see the light side. And then later on, there are the other sides of Lain, and they have their own ideas... It doesn't become a kudzu plot, but it's clear that there's more to Lain than a girl on the net (oh my!) and a few ideas. There's a definite backbone, and it strengthens the whole series.
Many characters are rather realistic, and we don't have to see much of their personal lives to see that. The main department from this is Lain's own parents, though. They're purposely cold, and seem like actors only playing the part. Even when Lain walks in on her parents while they're kissing, they don't seem to appreciate each other. It's things like these that make the series all the more strange.
Rating:
Art
Visually, some may not like SE:L. It's very minimalist, uses animation that isn't so fluid (definitely not at Kyoto Animation's level, but it is from 1998, keep in mind), and it's very relaxed. However, these are the things that I like the most about it. It proves that you don't need the flashy elements, brash attitude, and action-packed episodes to tell a good story and keep your interest hooked. Even after the series ended, I thought of the concepts and realities it explored, and kept them close. Any good series should stay with you like that (for example, NGE).
At first, the style seemingly wouldn't make you think of cyberpunk. The sun shines. People walk around, carefree. There really isn't a present danger. But the shadows, for example, are marred with splotches of red, like blood, denoting the dual-nature of the world. Coexisting with our world is the Internet, and the shadows (and power line hum) constantly remind you of that.
When you think about the style, though, it fits. Lain is drawn with an asymmetric haircut, reflecting her unstable personality. At times, her eyes are drawn so simply that you wonder if those lines in her iris are wires, and not biological in nature. The world is always full of contrast, showing the different sides of looking at things. Lain's room is technological, almost to a fault. You can even see how her cooling for her expanded computer system has caused a constant layer of water on her floor. It's the things that people don't always associate with cyberpunk that makes it cyberpunk.
Rating:
Sound
I do not have the best soundsystem in the world (over-ear headphones, 20Hz-20KHz, ~108dB). That said, I liked the sound for what it was -- an enhancement. The voice acting in Japanese was average, while in English, it might seem to lack for some. As an example, Lain seems to mature much more quickly in the Japanese audio, while in the English dub, she matures more slowly, but she seems much more older when she does mature. It's a slight difference, but it might change the feel of the series.
One unique motif is the use of mains hum. See, in an AC circuit, power is pushed and pulled from the power plant, and not just streamed to your house. In America, the rate of the fluctuation of 60Hz, or 60 forwards/backwards movements a second. This frequency can be audible, and is perceived as a low hum -- mains hum. In Japan, this rate is either 50 or 60 Hz. In Lain's area, it is 60 Hz. Why is this important? Well, whenever there's a dull moment with a shot of the power lines near her house, you can hear that hum. It just serves to further strengthen the feeling of the Wired all around you, and once you realize that, the series takes on a greater meaning.
The background music fit well (where it was present -- SE:L doesn't always use background music), except for a couple times where the OST changes to fast-paced rock music. It isn't jarring, but it does hit very hard, and out of the blue. It doesn't impact the scene, but is an interesting change of pace.
Again, SE:L doesn't always use background music. When it is used, it's pretty minimal. Slow-paced, atmospheric even. Just to set the tone for the scene, but nothing more. And in scenes where you'd expect the music to be one way (inside of club Cyberia, a popular location in the show, for instance) it throws a sort of curveball. While staying in a predefined genre, it isn't always what one might expect.
In these sense, the music fits, and the choices/composition of the OST were good. Speaking of, there are three official OSTs. One is the "Serial Experiments Lain OST", which includes the rock-based and instrumental music used in the show, as well as other tracks that weren't used in the show. The second is the "Lain: Cyberia Mix", which holds music that would be played in Cyberia, if it were a real club. All tracks are over 4 minutes long (except the TV-sized opening theme, Duvet, by boa [not the Korean singer BoA]). And lastly, there is the "Serial Experiments Lain: Bootleg", which, ironically, is often confused with the counterfeit version of itself. It contains all of the atmospheric music used in the show. Most tracks are less than 2 minutes long, showing where they come from, and their purpose.
Rating:
Presentation
There are also homages to various real-life companies, such as BeOS, Apple, Palm, and Copland, among others. These touches solidify it's technological base, even if by today's standards, they're a bit dated. (For example, Lain's original Navi was a version of the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh.) It's not product placement per se, but the influences and shout-outs are there, and it adds to the series, rather than detracts from it.
Audibly, it's informative. Oh, it's informative, and this can detract a bit. There's even an entire Layer (episode) devoted to background research, from the Memex to IPv6. SE:L not only shows that the designers have done their work, but it also lets you know that their is a meaning, process, and explanation behind everything we interact with, even if we don't realize it.
And that realization is what makes me love SE:L. It was the series that kept me interested in computer networking, and a lot of my current feelings can be traced back to it. You may think it silly to let a work of fiction have that much power of my life, but it's not entirely fiction. And it's not silly by any stretch.
Rating:
Final Verdict
8.8333 (very good)
Reviewed by kikaruu, Jun 02, 2010
Comments
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CoffeeNcakes Jun 02, 2010
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emina07 Mute Member Jun 02, 2010
is it not boring?
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MeMeLoVsKy Jun 03, 2010
well.!well.!well.! i like this serie....lain looks verry sweet, like the sound track opening!and the story!when the chapter of lain
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aurorawitch Jul 14, 2010
Did you like the serie since the beginnig or it became better in later episodes? I didn't like it's first episodes and surprised to see that everyone liked it. If it's good, i will continue to watch.
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rukasu04 Mute Member Aug 12, 2010
Nice review :P
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SchRita Aug 27, 2010
It starts a bit srange.
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patriz0 Oct 05, 2010
a bit psycho..
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Warpten29 Jan 14, 2011
Thanks for the unique review!
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